FIG. 1 illustrates a patching system 10 that may be used to connect computers, printers and other “work area” end devices 20 to network equipment that is located in a computer room 14. The patching system of FIG. 1 may also be used to interconnect devices in a data center. As shown in FIG. 1, an end device 20 (which is illustrated as being a computer, but could be other end devices such as printers, facsimile machines, etc.) that is located in a work area 12 is connected by a patch cord 22 (a patch cord is a cable that has a plug connector on at least one end thereof) to a modular wall jack 24. A so-called “horizontal” communications cable 28 is routed from the back end of the wall jack 24 through the walls of the building to the computer room 14. While only a single work area end device (computer 20) is shown in FIG. 1, it will be appreciated that a typical system includes hundreds or thousands of work area end devices 20, wall jacks 24 and horizontal cables 28.
As is further shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of patch panels 32 are mounted on a first equipment rack 30 in the computer room 14. A patch panel refers to a frame that includes a plurality (e.g., 24) of connector ports 34 mounted thereon. Each of these connector ports 34 has a back end that receives a communications cable (e.g., a cable 28) and a front side that includes a plug aperture that receives the plug of a patch cord. The connector ports 34 are used to electrically connect a patch cord to a communications cable. Each horizontal cable 28 from the wall jacks 24 in the work area 12 is terminated onto the back end of one of the connector ports 34 of one of the patch panels 32. A second set of patch panels 32′ that have connector ports 34′ are mounted on a second equipment rack 30′. A first set of patch cords 50 is used to interconnect the connector ports 34 on the patch panels 32 to respective connector ports 34′ on the patch panels 32′. Rack controllers 36 are provided on each equipment rack 30, 30′ that pass information from the patch panels 32, 32′ to a system administrator computer (not shown), as is discussed below.
Network devices such as network switches 42 and network routers and/or servers 46 are mounted on a third equipment rack 40. Each of the network switches 42 has a plurality of connector ports 44, and each network router and/or server 46 also includes one or more connector ports. An external communications line 52 is connected to one of the network devices 46. A second set of single-ended patch cords 70 connect the connector ports 44 on the network switches 42 to respective ones of the back ends of the connector ports 34′ on the patch panels 32′. A third set of patch cords 54 interconnect other of the connector ports 44 on the switches 42 with the connector ports on the network routers/servers 46. The cables 28, patch panels 32, 32′ and patch cords 50, 70 are used to connect each wall jack 24 to a respective connector port 44 on the network switches 42.
Communications from a particular work area end device (e.g., computer 20) are transmitted over the patch cord 22, through the wall jack 24, over the cable 28, and through the patch panels 32, 32′ and patch cords 50, 70 to one of the network switches 42, and this network switch 42 then routes those communications towards their intended destination (e.g., to another work area device 20, a network device 46, or to the external communication line 52 for transmission over the Internet). The network switches 42 likewise receive communications from internal or external sources and route these communications to the intended work area devices 20.
It may become necessary to change the connections between particular modular wall jacks 24 and the connector ports 44 on the network switches 42 for a variety of reasons such as employee office moves, providing additional capabilities (e.g., support for an Internet telephone) to particular offices and the like. The patch panels 32, 32′ are provided to facilitate such connectivity changes, as a system administrator need only rearrange one of the patch cords 50 that interconnect a connector port 34 on one of the patch panels 32 with respective connector port 34′ on one of the patch panels 32′ to effect an end-to-end connectivity change that connects a particular end device 20 to a different connector port 44 on one of the network switches 42. Each time such a connectivity change is made the change is recorded in a computer-based connectivity log that keeps track of all of the connections between the wall jacks 24 and the connector ports 44 on the network switches 42.
The system of FIG. 1 is referred to as a “cross-connect” patching system, as two separate sets of patch panels 32, 32′ are provided, and connectivity changes are made by rearranging the patch cords 50 that extend between the two sets of patch panels 32, 32′. In another configuration that is referred to as an “interconnect” patching system, the second set of patch panels 32′ and the second set of patch cords 70 are omitted, and instead the connector ports 34 on the first set of patch panels 32 are connected directly to the connector ports 44 on the network switches 42 by the patch cords 50. Interconnect patching systems require less equipment, but as is discussed below, may have less capabilities.
Unfortunately, computer-based connectivity logs often are replete with errors because of incorrect entries or because a technician forgets to enter a particular connectivity change into the log. In complex networks, it can be very difficult to identify and correct there errors. Accordingly, various “intelligent” patching systems have been proposed that sense connectivity changes and automatically update the computer-based connectivity log each time such changes are made.
One such patching system (available from CommScope, Inc., Hickory, N.C. under the name iPATCH) includes so-called “intelligent” patch panels 32, 32′ that work in conjunction with the rack controllers 36 and “system administrator” software (which runs on a control computer) to automatically track the connections between each wall jack 24 and its respective connector port 44 on one of the network switches 42. This system may be implemented in both cross-connect and interconnect patching configurations.
The system uses “intelligent” patch panels 32, 32′ that include sensors on each connector port 34, 34′ that detect each time the plug on a patch cord 50 is plugged into, or removed from, the connector ports 34, 34′. Each connector port 34, 34′ also includes an associated light-emitting diode (“LED”) 60 (see FIG. 1A) that may be automatically lit to help guide a technician to the connector port 34, 34′, and may also have an associated trace button that a technician may press in order to light the LED on the connector port 34, 34′ that the far end of a patch cord 50 is plugged into. Operations of the system will now be explained in the cross-connect and interconnect environments, respectively.
When the horizontal cabling 28 for a cross-connect patching system is first installed, a connectivity database is created, and the system administrator installing the network records in this database the connections between each wall jack 24 and its associated connector port 34 on the patch panels 32. As the horizontal cables 28 are hard-wired (as opposed to plug-in) connections that run through the walls of the building, these connections are assumed to be constant connections that never change. The system administrator likewise manually inputs into the connectivity database the connections between the connector ports 44 on each network switch 42 and their corresponding connector ports 34′ on the patch panels 32′ (i.e., the administrator enters into the connectivity database the end points of each single-ended patch cord 70 in FIG. 1). While these connections are more subject to change (since each patch cord 70 has a plug on one end thereof that plugs into one of the switch connector ports 44), once again it is assumed that these connections will not change (or at least that if they do change, the administrator will update the connectivity database to reflect these changes). Thus, the connections between the wall jacks 24 and the patch panels 32 are known in advance, as are the connections between the network switches 42 and the patch panels 32′. What is not known are the connections formed by the patch cords 50 between the patch panels 32 and the patch panels 32′. These connections are automatically determined by the aforementioned cross-connect system as follows.
When a new patch cord 50 is to be connected between the patch panels 32 and 32′, the sensor on the connector port 34, 34′ that the first end of this new patch cord 50 is plugged into senses the plug insertion, and notifies the system administrator software (via the rack manager 36) of this plug insertion. Thereafter the second end of the new patch cord 50 is plugged into another of the connector ports 34, 34′, and the system administrator software then assumes that these two back-to-back plug insertions represent the two ends of a new patch cord 50 that has been connected between the patch panels 32 and 32′. Since the sensors associated with each of the connector ports 34, 34′ will sense these two patch cord insertions, the system is able to automatically identify the connector ports 34, 34′ that the new patch cord 50 extends between. This information is added to the connectivity database.
The system also automatically tracks the removal of any of the patch cords 50 and/or changes in the connections formed by any of the patch cords 50. For example, if a patch cord 50 is removed from one of the connector ports 34 or 34′, this removal is sensed by the sensor on the connector ports 34, 34′. Since the iPatch system already knows exactly which connector port 34, 34′ the other end of the patch cord 50 is connected to, the iPatch system then lights the LED associated with that connector port 34, 34′ to help the technician find the far end of the patch cord 50. The system administrator can then remove the second end of the patch cord 50, which removal is sensed by the sensor on the connector port 34, 34′. After both ends of the patch cord 50 have been removed, the connection that was previously formed by the patch cord 50 at issue may be deleted from the connectivity database. If the administrator only unplugs one end of one of the patch cords 50 (which removal is sensed by the system) and then proceeds to plug the free end of the patch cord 50 into another one of the connector ports 34, 34′, the system will sense that a patch cord insertion was performed immediately after a patch cord removal as opposed to two patch cord removals occurring back-to-back. In response to sensing such a sequence of events, the system will then ask the system administrator to confirm that he is changing a connection (i.e., unplugging one end of one of the patch cords 50 and then plugging it back into a different connector port 34, 34′) as opposed to removing the patch cord 50 at issue in its entirety. Once the system administrator confirms that a connection change is being made, the system can automatically change the connection information stored in the connectivity database to reflect the connection change. In this manner, the system can automatically track the addition of new connections, the removal of existing connections, and changes to existing connections, and may thus automatically maintain an accurate connectivity database that tracks the connections between each connector port 44 on the network switches 42 and their corresponding modular wall jacks 24.
Some patching systems can automatically gather and store additional information regarding the network connections. In such an embodiment, the system administrator software sends control communications to the network switches 42 using Simple Network Management Protocol or “SNMP” commands to access information that is stored in memory at each network switch 42 such as the switch's name, number of connector ports 44, etc. Each network switch 42 also automatically generates a table that contains (1) the MAC address for each end device 20 that is communicating through the switch 42 (the MAC address is a unique identifier for each end device 20, and is automatically sensed by the network switch 42 once a device starts communicating through a network switch 42) and (2) the connector port 44 on a particular network switch 42 that each such end device 20 is connected to. The system may also use SNMP commands to pull this information from each network switch 42 for storage in the connectivity database. The system may also query an Address Resolution Protocol table (which may be resident on the network switches 42 or located elsewhere in the network) in order to convert each MAC address to an IP address for each end device 20. Thus, in this manner, the system can automatically track both (1) the physical connections between each modular wall jack 24 and its associated connector port 44 on one of the network switches 42 and (2) the identity of each end device 20 that is accessing the network via the wall jacks 24.
There are two different ways that the system may ensure that the identification information regarding the end devices 20 is kept up to date in the connectivity database. The first way is to simply schedule periodic checks (e.g., once an hour) where the system sends SNMP commands to each network switch 42 to request an update regarding the end devices 20 that are connected through the switches 42. Alternatively, each network switch 42 can send out notifications called SNMP traps each time the network switch 42 senses that a new end device 20 has been connected to the switch 42 (i.e., the network switch 42 sends out an SNMP trap each time the network switch 42 establishes a communication link with a new end device 20). In response to this SNMP trap, the system may then request information on the new end device 20 from the network switch 42. Monitoring end devices in this fashion may be useful, for example, for security purposes.
As noted above, patching systems may also be used to track an “interconnect” configuration. However, as commercially available network switches 42 do not include sensors at each connector port 44, the system can only automatically track one end of each patching connection (recall that in an interconnect-style network the patch cords 50 extend between the patch panels 32 and the network switches 42, as the patch panels 32′ are omitted). To compensate for this, the system can generate a work order each time it is necessary to add, remove or change a connection. Each such work order specifies the connector port 34 on one of the patch panels 32 and the connector port 44 on one of the network switches 42 that are implicated by the connection change. Once the technician makes the connection to the particular connector port 44 on the network switch 42 that is specified in the work order, the technician notifies the system administrator software that the connection has been completed by pressing the trace button associated with the connector port 34 on the patch panel 32 that receives the other end of the patch cord 50. This system is not foolproof, because it will not detect situations where the technician mistakenly plugs the patch cord 50 into the incorrect connector port 44 on the network switch 42.
It will be appreciated that the patching system of FIG. 1 is highly simplified and provided for the purposes of illustration only. Patching systems will typically include tens, hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of patch panels, which may be subdivided into tens or hundreds of local patching fields. Additional details regarding intelligent patching systems are set forth in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/110,994, filed May 19, 2011, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.